“Is that everything?” Kia asked.
“I checked the list twice. Everything is in there.”
The whole team had got together and come up with ideas. Kia and Lailah had sort of been the cocaptains of the committee. Strange how different the two of them were but how much they had in common. Not that I’d mention that to anybody—especially not them—but take away the extra-long nails and hair products from one and the basketball shoes and jersey from the other, and they had a whole lot in common. Both were very confident and very opinionated. And I wouldn’t want to get either of them mad at me. That’s why I wouldn’t mention the similarities.
After we’d come up with the ideas, we got Mr. Roberts on board as our teacher representative. Having him take part was like having another kid, but one with adult powers. He was more excited about the ideas than we were, and he seemed to be good at getting the other teachers involved.
It had taken almost two weeks to get our ideas together. And now they were all inside the big idea box. I ran my hand down the side of it. Inside this box might be our best chance of getting a school visit.
“Well, if all the ideas are in there, then let’s seal it up,” Lailah said.
“Okay, let’s just—” Kia stopped and pointed at me.
I looked down. I was still holding the letter that was supposed to go in the box to explain everything.
“Sorry.” I went to hand it to her and then pulled back the letter. “Let me just read it through one more time.”
I unfolded the letter.
Dear Ms. Allison,
I wanted to write to thank you for the awesome posters. They are up on the walls of all three grade-six classrooms. It was really cool that they were autographed.
Because you sent us some Raptors stuff, we wanted to send you some Raptors stuff we made. Please find enclosed things created by our school for the Raptors.
To show our Raptor spirit, we are sending you original drawings of the Raptors that were done by all of our kindergarten students. There are Raptors paintings that were painted by all of our grade ones. The grade-two students all made posters. The grade-three students all drew portraits of the Raptors players—some are really, really good. The grade-four and grade-five students wrote poems about basketball and the Raptors. Finally, every student in grade six wrote a story called “ The Day a Raptor Visited Our School.” I guess those are fictional stories, but they would become nonfiction if you send some Raptors to our school.
Maybe you can tell by this letter that we are still hoping that we could become the one school.
There is also a cd of a song called “Raptor Mania.” It was written by our music teacher, Mrs. Carson, and sung by the school choir. It is very good. You can use it at halftime or during time-outs if you want. Mrs. Carson has given permission.
There is also one other thing I couldn’t put in the box but wanted to tell you about. Last year in grade five we studied government and how democracy works. Recently we decided to test what we learned by having an election. We weren’t trying to elect anybody. Instead we held a vote to decide if the majority of our students were in favor of changing the name of our school teams. And they were! Starting next school year, we will have a new name. We will be known as the Clark Raptors—and we will finally have new jerseys in cool Raptors colors.
We would still like to have the Raptors come to our school. And we still have lots of pizza they could eat. And my mother is still willing to make you something else if you don’t like pizza.
Your friend,
Nick
“It’s good,” I said and handed it to Kia.
“So that’s everything.”
“Yep, everything.”
It was everything we’d talked about but not everything I’d hoped for. I was hoping that we’d have something from Jerome—maybe a letter or a promise that he’d call the Raptors himself— but there was nothing. Not even an answer to my email. Nothing.
That was strange. He always answered my emails. Was he upset with me that we hadn’t asked him to come to the school, or maybe because he thought that I was asking for another favor or…? No, that wasn’t like Jerome. He must be busy, or maybe he didn’t get the email, or maybe he was on vacation.
I was just glad I hadn’t told anybody that I’d emailed Jerome. I’d kept it a secret even from Kia. That way, if something happened it would be a surprise, and if nothing happened, then nobody would be disappointed…or think that I’d failed again.
“Do you think this is going to work?” Lailah asked.
“You miss every shot you don’t take,” Kia said. “So what have we got to lose?”
Kia was right. There was nothing to lose… except wasting our time, getting people’s hopes up for no reason and having everybody blame me when it didn’t work. Other than that, there was nothing to lose.